Index

What's it Like at an Occupy Encampment?

There is so much happening at Occupy that you won’t find in the big papers and won’t see on TV. How does it function on a day to day basis, who attends, what kind of work needs to be done, does anyone want to do that work? There are similarities across the various sites; in fact we now know that many of the occupiers travel from one site to the other, and they definitely share information via conference call and by internet.

Here at Lollipops we’ve got numerous pages giving the low-down on several occupy cities. In fact there is so much information right here on this one blog, its hard to find what you are looking for. To that end, today’s post is a recap, with all the links you need, to navigate to the city/issue you want to read about first. 

And why, you may ask, would this blog cover Occupy at all? As our tagline denotes we are ever
QUESTIONING OUR PRESIDENT'S PROMISE TO GIVE THE MIDDLE CLASS ALL THE GOODIES THEY COULD POSSIBLY DESIRE, YET NEVER ASK THEM TO PAY. 

The entire Occupy movement has come into being because of that empty promise. The president swept into office on the oath that he would provide health care, education, higher wages,  and a carbon free environment, and a host of other enticing things, at no cost to the middle class voter. We'll get the rich to pay,  he promised. And now the occupiers want that promise kept and are mobilizing to demand the heads of the so-called rich.

DC Occupy
There are many tents at Occupy DC, but who is living there and how do they think? And how are they going to know when to stop the occupation? They are constantly talking peace, but they plan and carry out actions that almost dictate that violence will result. They are making plans to insert themselves in the area community for months to come.

Who is hanging out at the DC occupation?

Roadmap for Violence

Logic Difficulties

The Goal of Occupy

Working Groups at Occupy  

Boston Occupy

The vast majority of people at Occupy events are not enamored of the founding documents of the United States. In Boston they have been jotting down some ideas for a substitute constitution. On the other hand, occupy events sometimes attract a handful of Ron Paul supporters and Tea Partiers. Some people in Boston know that the 99% definition is pretty fuzzy. Do all the ninety-nine percent wish to help do the work, or to wait patiently for the redistribution of Occupy Wealth?

Not me--Let some eager beaver pick up that trash

Gimme mine

Co-opting the language of Occupy

The new Boston Tea Party?

Boston's new constitution. 

Chapel Hill Occupy 

Here is how things all started at Chapel Hill in October 2011. From the first day, Chapel Hill Occupy offered a table spread thickly with literature from causes and perspectives they clearly hold near and dear.  

And who is living in the occupation? Perhaps not the poor, who seem to lack the motivation to join up. And where do they use the bathroom and what are the arrangements for rain in Chapel Hill? Which nearby organizations offer their support to Occupy Chapel Hill? Here are all the posts we have so far from Chapel Hill. And there's a video of that first day  as well.

First Day in Chapel Hill

Chapel Hill Literature Table

Not appealing to the poor

Churches provide bathrooms

TeaPartying at Occupy Boston

The "Main Street" corridor at Occupy Boston

I popped over to Occupy Boston recently and got a tour from the first person I met there, who happened to be someone who fits right at the intersection of the OWS/TeaParty. Both groups are against giving bailouts to banks. The TeaParty understands that the free market will not work when we allow the government to sustain businesses which mismanage themselves to the point where they deserve to go out of business, or undergo a painful reorganization. And the OWS people just don't like banks being handed billions of dollars of taxpayer money.... after all, any taxpayer money given to banks is money which could otherwise have been used for social justice. Theoretically. But Rod sees more commonalities than just that one.




Pictured below, Rod told me that he had come to Boston ten days ago, to visit some relatives. He had been planning on heading down to check out the Occupy scene in NYC. But when he realized there was an occupy thing in Boston as well, he brought a tent, moved in, and stayed. He holds a sign here saying "Restore Manufacturing" and "National Tariff Import Tax". The other side reads "True Progressives+Tea Party Roots+Young America Agenda". 

Tea Partiers tend to be pretty well informed and Rod is a good illustration of this. He recommends reading Pat Buchanan and Ralph Nader among others to get a comprehension of the trouble the nation is in, and to understand the direction we need to go. He feels that different people have different definitions of the word Capitalism and this explains part of the reason that TeaParty people and occupiers have trouble coming to terms. Feeling perfectly welcome among the OWS crowd, Rod pointed out a few other TeaPartiers in the crowd, one carrying a gigantic Gadsden Flag.  His reading has shown him that a nation needs a strong agricultural base as well as a strong manufacturing base in order to survive. These are the jobs which support others in the society. A service economy or a consumer economy will not carry a nation, he says, at least not for long.

Gadsden Flag at Occupy Boston.

When I arrived at the event, Rod was standing talking to a few young people who were walking around trying to register new voters. After they had moved on, he took me on a grand tour of the entire site. More to come in the next few days.


I was really not sure what to make of seeing two TeaPartiers join the protest. You can see the difference in perspective quite starkly if you check out what the Boston people want in the new constitution they seem convinced we must have. 




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Presidential Address about the "Threat" to America"

Darned if the President didn't speak recently about the Swine Flu, but if you change the word "virus" to "conservatism", and change a few other minor details, it still rings true to character.



It's been just over a week since we learned about this novel strain of the conservatism virus that's now affecting people in at least 11 of our 57 states as well as hundreds of cities and towns.

And throughout this process, my top priority's been the healthy and -- health and the "safety" of the minds American people. And to that end, we've closely monitored the situation. I am extraordinarily proud of the work that's been done by the Department of Homeland Security and Janet Napolitano. They've been really leading the charge. We now brought in the cavalry -- (soft laughter) – with Chris Matthews and Rachel Maddow and John Stewart.

We're obviously focused on what needs to be done immediately: Identifying and mitigating cases of this new wave of support for the Constitution of the United States, pre-positioning treatments for those who are infected with the propensity to rational thought, making sure that they're distributed appropriately around the country, providing clear guidance as well as the best science to our state and local officials as they move forward against citizens peacefully exercising free speech, and speaking clearly to the American people, as I did the evening of the news conference, about the mitigation steps that they personally can take.

But we also need to prepare for the long term, since we know that these kinds of threats can emerge at any moment. Even if it turns out that the rising tide of support for the Constitution and the Bill of Rights is relatively mild on the front end, it could come back in a more virulent form during the 2010 election season, and that's why we are investing in our public propaganda infrastructure.

We've had discussions about the production of teaparty vaccines for -- in anticipation of the congressional election season, and we've made sure that all our agencies here are coordinating, that they have appropriate action plans; that we, for example, are working with the Department of Education to provide clear guidelines for school dissemination of disinformation; that we are working with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, for example, to ensure that businesses are to be punished in every way we can think of as we persist with our overreaching efforts; discussions with our secretary of State, as well as our ambassador to the United Nations, about how we're going to foist new transnational laws and rules upon our freedom-loving people as we respond to potential requests from other countries for assistance in dealing with this issue.

Overall, I'm very pleased with the progress that we've made. I think that those who have been on top of this have done an extraordinary job of loading our country up with debt and liberal programs that most Americans think we don't need. I'm optimistic that we're going to be able to manage this effectively, but we still have more work to do, and I'm glad I've got such a great team doing it.

And I want to make clear to everybody -- and the reason I brought this Cabinet meeting together -- is that we are taking this very seriously and we will take every single step that's necessary to make sure that the American people are separated from the money they have earned, and are freed from the Constitution and what makes this country great.

One last point I want to make, because this was actually raised during this meeting. Somebody asked why this renewed passion for liberty and freedom is different from other middle-American ideas throughout American history. We don't know for certain that this will end up being more severe than other centrist American philosophy that has plagued this country for so long. And it's been noted, I think, before that you have over 36,000 people die on average every year from individual choice and the pursuit of happiness. You have 200,000 hospitalizations.

It may turn out that current Constitution fever is -- runs its course like ordinary American tenets, in which case we will have prepared and we won't need all these preparations.

The reason that people are concerned is -- the scientists are concerned is, this is a new strain of centrist thought, led by people waving teabags around (chuckle).

And so what happens is that Americans and people around the world have not built up immunity to liberty and freedom, in the way that I would like them to accept the creeping liberalism we are trying hard to install.

Those seasonal centrist American philosophies may deepen, mutate slightly from year to year. But they're all roughly in the same band. When you have a new strain, then potentially our immune systems can't fight against freedom as effectively. That is why this renewed interest in liberty must be stopped swiftly.

And there are indications that in Mexico at least, what you saw were relatively young, healthy people die from these – from their attempts to flee to the land of the free and brave, where they hoped to live under the American Constitution, rather than people whose thought systems are already compromised, older individuals, very small infants and so forth.

So that's why we're taking it seriously. We have not yet seen those same kinds of fatalities here in the United States, among young, healthy people with non-compromised thought systems. But we want to make sure that we're preparing appropriately.

So I just want everybody to be clear that this is why this is a cause for concern but not alarm. We are essentially ensuring that in the worst-case scenario, we can manage this new threat to liberalism and socialism appropriately. Government will be working on and controlling businesses and individuals in the private sector and will end up containing this deplorable outbreak of a desire for fiscal responsibility and a return to central American values and common sense. We can ultimately get through this.

Send a Tea Bag to the White House!

There are many things we want in life, but some of them are just unaffordable. And so it is with government. That is why it is important to keep government small and run it as cheaply as we can. BUT, It is now crystal clear to Americans that the man who seeks to "make government cool again" has climbed aboard a freight train of spending. He wants big government and he wants it now. This we must stop, because otherwise we are going to have to pay, and we will be paying too much! As always, the middle class will bear the burden, because there are not enough so-called "rich people" to fund these wide-reaching and permanent costs. Already the congress is approving bills which will limit the tax deductions which the middle class are used to having. Removal of deductions is known as a tax increase! So no matter what we were told by the Obama campaign, the middle class will indeed see substantial increases to their taxation. Don't put up with it!

The time to speak up is now. Perhaps you would like to join the New American Tea Party and send a teabag to the White House. Address in the clickable bumper sticker at the top of the page.

Telling it like it is

Quotations from the week:

I can't think of any ongoing enterprise in the history of mankind that is well managed by a government.
------Larry Kudlow, CNBC

We're going to be in this recession a lot longer than we thought, because as soon as we start emerging, high taxes are going to put us right back down.
--------Maria Bartiromo, CNBC

Big government is back and the Democrats are asking you to pay for it.
--------John Boehner, House Republican Leader

Socialism: it works! by WINDYDESIGN
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People are getting angry about the big spending and have started to assemble in cities across the country.
Some talking points from the New American Tea Party.

1. This is a non-partisan event — in fact, it’s critical of both parties — large-scale government interventions into the free market were kicked off under Bush, and Obama’s doing no better.

2. The American taxpayer is better at spending his money than the government. If you ask your average taxpayer if he wanted to spend millions of dollars on golf course renovations, you could be sure he’d say no.

3. Small business owners are the backbone of the economy, not large failing corporations. Amping up regulations only hurts these businesses.

4. It is our *optimism* that guides our frustration. We believe so strongly in the ingenuity and hard work of the American people, that we feel big government measures will only get in the way of their success.